Trion’s Atlas Reactor Now In Open Beta

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Trion Worlds’ upcoming tactical combat PvP bonanza Atlas Reactor [official site] is now in open beta. The game’s a simultaneous turn-based strategy twist on the trendy arena shooter. Players choose their actions during “Decision Mode” before watching how everything plays out in subsequent “Resolution Mode”. Rather than reacting to your opponents in real time, you have to predict their movements before hand, giving Atlas Reactor more of a cerebral feel. It’s a bit like Frozen Synapse, but with a colorful cast of cartoon fighters and robo-puppies.

The test runs until September 25, granting players full access to the game during the test period. After that, the game will be down until September 30, when the Headstart period begins, welcoming all players who bought Atlas Reactor. If that doesn’t sound like you, you’ll have to wait until full launch on October 4, when you can play the game in “free mode”, giving you a limited selection of “Freelancers”, or characters, and game modes. While character level progress and currency won’t transfer over to the full release, you will get to hang onto select unlockables and cosmetic add-ons.

Well, the original idea isn’t really theirs… :P or at least they’re not the first to implement it. But if you meant putting the focus heavily on multiplayer and spectators, yeah, I’ve no interest in the game myself but done right I could see it being pretty popular. If they hyped up the whole “AND NOW! WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT???” aspect of it then it could go down very well with a screaming crowd/a Twitch channel etc.

Just wanted to point out that contrary to what was said in the article, you don’t get to keep your progress from beta to live. Quote from Trion announcement : “In order to prepare for the launch, we’ll need to shut down the servers for a bit, reset the accounts“.

The only progress we’re talking about here is purely graphical stuff though, so no biggy.

I’ve played some of the previous invite only beta events for this. It’s a lovely little game. One of its best features is it has is the game length is a good amount of time without feeling rushed. It’s a great way of scratching that hero battle itch in an amount of time that’s more manageable than a DotA match. Plus once you start learning the game it’s a skill you can retain a bit better than the mechanical skills needed by other games.

It’s definitely worth a look. To me its biggest competitor is actually Hearthstone, it’s one of those games I can leave installed and use to scratch a competitive itch without having to really hone execution skills and it is the type of game where you can sit down and just play a few rounds quickly and feel good about it.

I’ve really enjoyed the few matches I’ve played so far. I loved playing DOTA/LOL but I couldn’t keep up with the twitchy click-fest that is competitive play in those games… without destroying my hands, anyway.

Also, I really like AR’s main menu music. The aesthetics overall are very nice.

It is a little tricky to get into the swing of making decisions in 20 seconds — it’s a surprisingly short window when you’re trying to evaluate so many changes each turn and plan where to be. I’ve had plenty of whiffed turns, sitting there like a dunce because I couldn’t confirm my action in time.

I am leaning towards purchasing it at the pre-order price of $20, but I’ll be playing a bit more in the open beta before deciding for sure.